


Happy Birthday

by Jupiterra



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Complete, M/M, One-Sided Relationship, Soviet Union
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 19:06:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15869871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jupiterra/pseuds/Jupiterra
Summary: Ivan's birthday party does not go well. Written for an anonymous.





	Happy Birthday

The cake was simple white frosting. The representative of Russia had baked it himself, with great care and deliberation. Ivan used to use naturally coloured frosting, but no longer saw the point. This wasn't a big party like years past.

The party was supposed small and quiet. The ash blonde didn't know how many people would come this year, but it was probably very few. He had invited five people, with two immediate rejections. His big sister saying no so quickly had been... painful. Toris being busy was not unexpected. Belarus was not here. She had not responded to the invite.

Maybe she was late. Maybe Toris, Alfred, and Finland were late. Maybe they were coming.

Ivan had started the party at 1800 hours, or 6 pm in American terms. It was a fair time to start. With lots of time after a dinner, there was no excuse not to attend. He even offered to pay half their plane tickets to show up. The ash blonde couldn't really afford this grand gesture. Considering he stole everything not nailed down in USSR times, this was a non-issue.

It was now 2200 hours, or 10 pm. Darkness from the winter world outside seeped into through windows. The sorrowful greys dimmed everything to subtle shades of depression. The only notable light left was above the dining table. A single bright bulb above a white table cloth. A white cake. No colour seemed to be perceived, but that was wrong. There had to be colour, there just had to be. Ivan was simply in the wrong room, or he was drunk again.

He stood and walked into the shadows of his empty apartment. Wasn't it supposed to be a house? Why did Ivan suddenly not know where he lived? Pulling a fur coat on in a huff, this lesser detail was no longer important. It was obvious now, no one was coming to his birthday party.

Pulling on his boots, Ivan walked outside for fresh air. It was dark and frigid out, the uneven ground white and fluffy. There was a sound behind him, manic and loud. Russia's blood ran cold at hearing it, making him walk more briskly. It was his own crazed laugh, but the stubborn man refused to acknowledge it. It wasn't real after all. Still, the sound traced and followed him like a malicious spirit.

“Oh Ivan.” the nothingness whispered.

“You're not real!” Ivan shouted, pushing himself into a jog. Anything to get away from his own disembodied madness.

“Ivan.” darkness teased in sing song, sounding somehow closer.

Ivan panted from the effort of running in frozen winter, but forced himself to move faster. This far from the house, it was pitch black out. He huffed and puffed as he ran blindly, finally losing that malicious voice. Unfortunately, he was now lost. A small pinprick of light was far in the distance.

The scared man ran for it. Maybe there was help at this other structure. Maybe there was people there that could help explain why the world was gone. Where was the busy Moscow city life? Where was the street lamps and sidewalks, the people, the anything?

The pinprick of light grew, becoming more clear. It was a wide open front door, distinctly his own front door. There was no foot steps leading out in the fresh white snow at all. Unsure how to process this, Ivan simply walked back into his home. The shoe rack the same, knocked slightly askew from pulling his boots on in such a rush. The place was still unnaturally grey. The only options were the dining table with that lonely white cake, and a long featureless hall.

Not wanting to face the fact Ivan was alone in black and white, he chose the hall. It was winding with dated floral wallpaper, poorly lit by sparse wall sconces. After a minute, another room was entered. It was the dining room again, a copy of the one he just left. Increasingly frustrated by this particular bout of insanity, Ivan turned around to leave. He almost smashed face first into the now closed front door. The hall he had just traversed was gone.

“You're so stubborn it's stupid.” the malicious voice teased.

“Not listening.” Ivan muttered. Taking off his excessively warm coat, he hung it up. Sitting miserably in front of that white cake again, the ash blonde giant of a man fumed. It was uncomfortably silent and somehow darker outside. This very well have been the last room in the universe.

“Can you sense it? Your pathetic capitalist world is falling apart.”

“Show yourself or go away!” Ivan snapped, the strangeness of it all getting to him.

The evil reflection that was his voice sounded pleased. It was Ivan, appearing across from himself. This one wore a soviet captain's coat, star embossed hat proudly clean. “So polite of you to invite me in, even if I am you.”

“The soviet dream was killed, and you died with it.” Ivan stated coldly, staring hard at the illusion. It pulled out a chair and sat, lighting a cigarette.

“It makes me laugh, how stupid you are. Thinking you're real. Thinking anything matters, when you damn well know it doesn't. Everything you do is imaginary bullshit.” Evil Ivan taunted, blowing smoke right in the other man's face.

“Why are you here?” Regular Ivan asked, coughing as he cringed.

“It's your birthday you stupid ox. I'm the only one here, the only one. I'm the only one that sees how _fucking_ stupid you are.” Evil Ivan sneered, his violet eyes glinting with pure hate and rage.

“Go away!” this order was ignored. 

A red and gold wrapped present was slid in front of Ivan by his evil counterpart. “Only after you see what I got you.” There was likely a reason Evil Ivan and his gift were the only things in colour right now. Curiosity won out over sheer spite for the USSR personality. Ivan unwrapped it slowly, careful not to rip the gift paper. His amoral guest watched with patient amusement, tapping cigarette ashes all over the place. Arrogant bastard!

It was a black pistol inside a shoe box, a well used Makarov. Loaded and ready to fire, it sat in sparkly tissue paper. Ivan grinned, picking it up. “Just what I needed.” The Russian stood, quick to aim it at the other man's head. “Now you will leave.”

Evil Ivan took this all in stride, pulling the pistol close. He stared down the barrel without fear, petting the thing like it was a cat. “I'm not afraid. I'm not. I'm ready, kill me again. Kill me again. Kill me until we both die.”

Ivan didn't really know what to do. He was trapped in some nightmare scenario with an evil version of himself that was erotically suicidal. Gun in his mouth, Soviet Ivan was practically molesting the other man's arm. “Stop that, you're being strange.”

Evil Ivan stopped and took the the pistol barrel out of his mouth. “You're no fun. You know why? You can't pull the trigger. You can't kill me, because I'm you. You may be a mass murdering piece of shit, but at least you know that much. Would it help if I dressed up as an unpopular minority? Would you kill me then, you murdering fucker?”

Ivan didn't know what to say to this very angry hallucination, or possible ghost. The fact of matter was that monster was right. Ivan couldn't pull the trigger. Something about this crazed projection of his head was too compelling to kill. Maybe Ivan was too weak after all. He never did good enough, he was always corrupted and mislead.

“You spare me? You have the stupidity to spare me? You didn't spare all the gypsies in the gulags. The gays. The handicapped. With those _treasonous_ thoughts of Francis and Mr. Jones floating about in your head... You are just as sick as those animals you put down.” 

Heckled and stressed, Ivan straightened his aim at the evil thing's chest. “I'm not... I'm... I didn't know so many were being sent away. I didn't mean to get them killed. I didn't...” he stammered, heart racing.

Evil Ivan casually smoked, blowing more rings in the upset man's face just to piss him off. “You're a monster. You watched innocents die, all the while such dirty thoughts in that head. Ivan, you'd eat cock for breakfast. You'd be the disgusting American's whore. His beast. His shit eating dog.”

Ivan's anger fluttered violently to the surface, a white knuckle grip on his pistol. “Shut up!”

Evil Ivan laughed cruelly, then pressed the barrel to the centre of his upper torso. His two soviet hero of the people medals tinged off the barrel tip. Two leather gloved hands prevented from the gun from moving. “What's even worse than you being a disgusting homosexual... What's completely unforgivable, is how much you lust for the enemy. You love Alfred Fos –”

“No! No! No!” Ivan screamed, closing his eyes shut and firing. His darkest secret could never be revealed, never. He would be hanged, burned, beheaded, killed, or banished. Beyond all this, Alfred would mock him, crushing the few scraps of Ivan's hope to dust.

Firing until there was only empty clicks, Ivan's chest burned and hurt beyond measure. Opening his eyes, the paling man realized something terrible. He was in his kitchen and dining area, green and yellow tiles flecked with gunshot blood. Orange city light washed in through half drawn blinds, glimmering off the blood pouring out of Ivan's body.

Ragged breathes turned to violent struggles as Ivan desperately coughed up fresh crimson. It was so severe, he had to drop the gun awkwardly aimed at his own chest. The tool of destruction landed on the wood floor with a heavy clank. Black leather gloved hands barely broke the fall as he fell to his knees. Slumping, Ivan could see his home for what it was. The cramped space was colourful, an ancient apartment of the early 1980's. The white innocence of the cake and table cloth were spoiled with several blood drops.

Already, there was banging on the door and police sirens in the distance. “You were right after all. I am a monster. I am...” With the last clear breath, Ivan fell to the floor and violently choked on his own blood.

People screaming, seeing shoes in his dimming field of vision. Sirens drawing closer. Ivan Braginsky, scourge of his own peoples, plunged towards death with burning lungs. The last thought, however fleeting, was the most honest. _If only I could have seen Alfred one more time..._


End file.
